NCAS Computational Modelling Services

Unified Model

UKESM1 Release Notes

These are the notes for UKESM1, the first release of the UK Earth System Model. Some background information on the model, its components and the prerequisites for using it can be found in the introduction to UKESM.

A later release, UKESM1.1 is avaiable, see the UKESM1.1 release notes.

Model Configurations

The model is available in a number of configurations for running different types of experiment:

  • Atmosphere-only: The so-called AMIP configuration, in which the model atmosphere is forced by observed sea surface temperature and sea ice boundary conditions.

  • Coupled: Two fully coupled configurations, which each make use of all model components:

    • one set up to run the CMIP6 pre-industrial control experiment, and
    • one to run the CMIP6 historical experiment.

There are also additional coupled configurations for the CMIP6 abrupt4xCO2 and 1%CO2 experiments, which can be created using the pre-industrial control experiment as a starting point.

A full description of how to access and run each configuration can be found on the AMIP and Coupled configuration pages.

CMIP6 Data

Datasets from CMIP6 experiments run using UKESM1 are available from the Earth System Grid Federation (ESGF). Full details are available from the following Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs):

ExperimentDOI
DECKhttps://doi.org/10.22033/ESGF/CMIP6.1569
Historicalhttps://doi.org/10.22033/ESGF/CMIP6.6113
ScenarioMIP - ssp119https://doi.org/10.22033/ESGF/CMIP6.6329
ScenarioMIP - ssp126https://doi.org/10.22033/ESGF/CMIP6.6333
ScenarioMIP - ssp245https://doi.org/10.22033/ESGF/CMIP6.6339
ScenarioMIP - ssp370https://doi.org/10.22033/ESGF/CMIP6.6347
ScenarioMIP - ssp434https://doi.org/10.22033/ESGF/CMIP6.6389
ScenarioMIP - ssp534-overhttps://doi.org/10.22033/ESGF/CMIP6.6397
ScenarioMIP - ssp585https://doi.org/10.22033/ESGF/CMIP6.6405

Documentation

UKESM1 is documented in:

Alistair A. Sellar, Colin G. Jones, Jane P. Mulcahy, Yongming Tang, Andrew Yool, Andy Wiltshire, Fiona M. O’Connor, Marc Stringer, Richard Hill, Julien Palmieri, Stephanie Woodward, Lee de Mora, Till Kuhlbrodt, Steven T. Rumbold, Douglas I. Kelley, Rich Ellis, Colin E. Johnson, Jeremy Walton, Nathan Luke Abraham, Martin B. Andrews, Timothy Andrews, Alex T. Archibald, Ségolène Berthou, Eleanor Burke, Ed Blockley, Ken Carslaw, Mohit Dalvi, John Edwards, Gerd A. Folberth, Nicola Gedney, Paul T. Griffiths, Anna B. Harper, Maggie A. Hendry, Alan J. Hewitt, Ben Johnson, Andy Jones, Chris D. Jones, James Keeble, Spencer Liddicoat, Olaf Morgenstern, Robert J. Parker, Valeriu Predoi, Eddy Robertson, Antony Siahaan, Robin S. Smith, Ranjini Swaminathan, Matthew T. Woodhouse, Guang Zeng, Mohamed Zerroukat (2019). UKESM1: Description and evaluation of the U.K. Earth System Model. Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems, 11, 4513– 4558. https://doi.org/10.1029/2019MS001739

Support

  • NERC users requiring assistance running this suite on NERC machines (ARCHER, NEXCS, Monsoon) should raise a ticket on the NCAS-CMS helpdesk.
  • Users running this suite on other machines should contact local support services.